Everland... again!

What can I say, we love this place!  So we took Aunt EJ and Uncle E along with our friends Lynn, Patrick, and Adeline to our favorite Korean happy place!  Note the "not quite right" Mouse character... hmm...

Right away the three big Es along with Patrick headed off to a big roller coaster.  After a little negotiating, N and I rode a smaller ride, while e and Adeline just hung out.  

I think they were still a little frozen at this point in the day...

Then we were off to the ball room.  What can I say about the ball room.  Such pure joy for boys of all ages!  

Yes, that is Patrick trying to take out E... and E firing back!  Let me tell you, it was harder to get the two of them out of there than it was to get the little kids out!

Next it was time for "It's a Small World", I mean "Global Village."  Yet another "not quite right" moment.  Just like it's counter part in Florida this ride is complete with boats and an annoying song to make a ride that goes on for WAY too long.  Ah, it brings back memories of my childhood where I forced my parents to stand in hour long lines to ride "Small World" over and over again.  Oh what I have to look forward to...

There are some uniquely Korean rides.  Like this helicopter ride where you pedal yourself around a track that is way high in the air (Aunt EJ got stuck with N, who can't reach the pedals, so isn't much help), and this chair ride where the chairs go up and down sort of like a fountain.  

Then we headed for another unique Korean experience.  The Safari ride.  Here you ride in a bus and are literally inches from these lions and bears, with only the bus window between you and them.  It's soooo not politically correct, and would never fly in the states, but it's amazing to see the animals so close!  

I actually made eye contact with one of the lions.  Now that's trippy!

Towards the end of the day I snapped this picture of Adeline.  I love the way the light is hitting her face.  My boys are in love with this girl.  We keep joking that one of them needs to marry her!  I'd keep her now, except for her parents and grandparents might have something to say about that.  She is such a sweet girl and the boys are really going to miss her when we move.

As we were just about to leave, I caught this father / son moment on camera.  "Where's your nose" is a favorite game for e right now!  I just love the closeness between the two of them.  

Anyway, we had a great day as usual!  Thanks everyone for coming with us!

So many Es!

OK - So once again, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything.  I could go on and on with my reasons why (in-laws in town, a trip to China, piles of paperwork for our move...) but instead I'll just get on with the pictures.  I know you're probably all here for pictures of our China trip or N's birthday, but being the person I am, I feel the need to write in chronological order.  Therefore, we shall start with Uncle E's and Aunt EJ's trip to Korea to visit us.  Bear with me as I try to keep all those Es straight in this post!

The first day they were here, we all headed up to Seoul for a couple days of sightseeing.  No, we didn't give them any time to get over jet-lag.  Little e had an audiologist appointment, so that was the day we were going!  Now, if you recall my previous posts, you will remember that e was down and out with the stomach flu.  This hadn't changed.  But, up to Seoul we went, undaunted by the exploding diapers in the back seat.  Actually, the boys and I just napped in the hotel room the first day to give e some more recovery time.  E, Uncle E, and Aunt EJ (this is getting ridiculous) went to another of the Korean palaces in Seoul.  (Not the same as the exploding diaper last week, we were afraid they wouldn't let us back in...)  I love this picture of the three of them.  Those are some strong genes, let me tell you!

I thought I'd include this photo of the inside of one of the palace buildings for those of you in the states.  They are beautiful, the paintings are so bright and vibrant.  Really neat to see.

When in Seoul we usually get around by subway, driving is a might crazy.  Apparently Uncle E thought the subway system was a little convoluted too.  Luckily E helped out his little, I mean younger, brother!The next morning we headed to Namdaemun market (the second time in as many weeks, it's such a fun place!)  But first we had to stop and get our morning exercise.  These little exercise stations are all over Korea, usually near a playground.  Makes sense to me, let the kiddos play while the adults work out!  

At the market, EJ and Uncle E try out some Korean yummies, while little e perfected his gangster look...

Then it was off to the Seoul tower.  We took this cable car up to the top of the hill where the tower is.  

The tower itself isn't actually all that tall, it just sits on top of a high hill, sort of tower cheating I think, but the views are still pretty cool!  

While at the top we realized that e was freezing, so we bundled him up even more, and got some great pictures!

The next day Uncle E and EJ headed out for an adventure of their own.  We sent them off to E-Mart, and they came back with these little accessories for our "minivan car".  These crack us up.  We see them all the time over here, protecting car doors from dings.  It's so funny to see a really fancy new car with blue Styrofoam pads stuck to the doors!

To give them a little more Korean culture than blue foamies on car doors, we took them to the Korean Folk Village.  It's like a Living History Farms of Korea.  There are some amazing shows to see, and working farms to walk around in.  We all had a fun time playing this traditional Korean game where you try to get the sticks into the little cylinders.  Some of us had more luck than others (EJ) but we all had a good time!

Meanwhile, e was mobbed by the Korean paparazzi.  

Yes, he is in the middle of all of those girls.  This is actually a very frequent scene when we travel anywhere in Korea, they just love kids.  Especially blond kids.  As you can imagine, N hates it.  Little e however, loves it.  I mean, he smiles for all he's worth and charms all those Korean girls!

We also took trips to the DMZ and Everland (which will be the topics of later posts) and spent some time hanging out at home (while EJ perfects her Korean photo pose... they all do this),

bowling (with N in bowling shoes for the first time), 

and going to dinner at our favorite Korean restaurant, Sam Il.  

Thanks for making the trip guys, we had a great time!

An eventful Easter!

Well, with all the family in town, we had an eventful Easter to say the least... it was not, shall we say, a picture perfect day!

The day before we dyed some Easter eggs.  Notice that N is the only child participating in this activity.  e and Uncle T were both still down with the flu, so Grandpa and N decorated the eggs.  N did a great job and was very patient!

Easter morning we had a little egg hunt before we had to take Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle T back to the airport.  N really got into it this year, and e was so cute carrying around the couple eggs he found.  At one point, N had all the eggs he found neatly lined up on the ottoman, sorted by color.  What a kid!

And check out those Easter Tupperware bowls.  I think the Easter Bunny might have forgotten to bring baskets to Korea... so she had work with what she had...

Then we headed to the airport to say goodbye.  But not before getting an adorable picture of e and in his Easter finest!Then the real adventures began.  When we got back into the car and turned it on, we heard an unmistakably bad sound.  E got out, popped the hood, and thought it looked like one of the belts was loose.  Now, bear in mind it's Easter Sunday, and our plans did not include going home for several more hours.  We were headed to the Dragon Hill for Easter brunch, then back to the airport several hours later to pick up Aunt EJ and Uncle E.  Also, keep in mind that Seoul is a gigantic city, so this involved lots of driving in a now really bad sounding van.  

So we limped the van to the Dragon Hill for brunch, but when I went to get e out of his car seat, I discovered problem number two of the day.  His diaper had exploded on the ride across town.  And was Mom smart enough to bring spare clothes even though he was just getting over the stomach flu?  Nope.  So I very ungracefully changed him in the bathroom and washed out his pants as best I could before we ate.  At this point I was hoping to take a nice family photo of everyone all dressed up, but oddly enough, that didn't happen.

But we had a nice lunch none the less, until I picked up e to leave.  Yup, you guessed it.  His diaper had exploded, again!  Argh!  At this point the pants were unsalvageable, so we had to make a trip to the BX.  Luckily, Easter outfits are on sale on Easter afternoon!  So, problem number two was dealt with... back to the van.  

While in the BX I got directions to the auto hobby shop.  Let me tell you, the guy I asked gave me a funny look when I said I need to get to the auto hobby shop on Easter, in my good clothes, holding a new Easter outfit for my kid.  Ah the joy.  Anyway, we found it.  And there were actually mechanics working!

Hold on tight while I break out my best car lingo... apparently the AC compressor was on it's way out, which didn't seem like a big deal to me because it was March and quite rainy chilly, so I didn't see any need for air conditioning.  However, the belt around the AC compressor also went around the alternator, and I am smart enough to know we needed that.  So eventually the compressor was going to seize up, melt the belt, an then the alternator would stop spinning.  Great.  The guy said he didn't have the parts, and that the car was not safe to drive, and he seemed to look at us like we'd lost it when we said we had to drive to the airport and then back home.  Not good.  Since at this point, it was becoming evident I was not going to get that perfect family photo, I snapped this one of the boys while the mechanics were looking at the car.

Then E broke out his mechanical engineering degree and noticed that there was a way to reroute a different belt to bypass the AC compressor, so there would be no AC, but the alternator would spin and the car would be safe to drive.  Always a bonus.  The mechanic said it would work if he had the right sized belt.  After several minutes of looking, he found it!  I have never been so excited to see a belt in my life.  We really couldn't figure out what we were going to do.  Here is a photo of E and N along with our "minivan car" as N calls it, being fixed.  He was very curious as to why it was up in the air!

After this adventure we returned to the airport to pick up Aunt EJ and Uncle E, who we were very happy to see after such a long day.  Happy Easter!

Grandma, Grandpa, & Uncle Trent visit

I know it's been a while since I posted anything here, but with a couple months left in Korea, and lots of family visiting, we've been going, going!  We had a really good time with my family in town, even though the stomach flu reared it's ugly head!

To start out their trip, Dad, L, and Uncle T got stuck in SFO for a night, so we missed out on an entire day, which was huge bummer, but we tried to make up for it.  We did a lot of the standard Korean things.  L and I visited the purse shops and walked out with some fabulous bags...  I can't believe we didn't get a picture of them!  T got a blanket and we all enjoyed some wonderful Korean food.  Dad checked out E-Mart.  (I can't believe I forgot my camera, again... Dad loves grocery stores and was amazed by the packaging of the Korean products.  I'll make sure to get some E-Mart photos before we go...)  We also figured out that the Piz.za Hut here serves his product.  It's a small world after all!

We did manage to remember our camera on our trip to Everland, and got one of the best shots of all of us, and the Everland creature.  You might say she's like Minnie, but not quite right!

We had a great time in the ball pit...

... and on the roller coasters.  

Yes, I'm a bit of a chicken, so I mostly rode the kiddie coasters.  For the record, I did go on a big one at the end of the day.  Funny story, the Everland employees kept asking if my dad's heart was OK before they would let him on the big coasters, and one girl even called over her supervisor to talk to him before he could ride.  Picture that with the pointy talky.  "Heart, OK?"  Apparently Koreans over 50 do not ride roller coasters!  We didn't give him a hard time about that at all!  Hee, hee.

e did get to practice his driving a bit while we were there too.  How did Uncle T even get into that tiny car!?

And N got some ice cream with Daddy (he still hasn't quite figured out how to eat an ice cream cone yet...)

The next day we headed to Seoul to spend two days sightseeing up there.  Our first stop was the flower market.  This is a wonderful place full of flowers being sold at wholesale prices.  Anyone can go, look around, and buy.  It is glorious!

In the morning, we headed to one of my favorite spots in Seoul, Namdeamun market.  It is an amazing display of anything and everything for sale.  It's just all packed in there, and a little bit of something for everyone.  In true fashion, we ate our way through.  

Then it was back on the subway for our last stop of the day, one of the palaces.  

We didn't know when this picture was taken, but e was not feeling so well.  Here we are in the palace right before the flu hit.  

All of a sudden, e's diaper just exploded.  I mean, the worst I've seen to date, and that's saying something.  It took three adults to clean him up.  (Yes, still in the Korean palace...) and he got back on the subway wearing N's sweatshirt and my fleece around his legs.  One stop away from ours, he threw up.  On the subway.  It was lovely.  So we all rushed off the train and cleaned him up again.  He rode that last stop wearing only my fleece around him, and by this point I was carrying a rather nasty pile of dirty clothes.  I kept picturing that AFN ad where they tell you to blend in to your surroundings.  Let me tell you, we did not blend.  Not with a baby with the stomach flu on the subway!  Needless to say we got back in the car and headed for home.  Here is Grandpa rocking the little guy... except for Grandpa fell asleep first!

Two days later, Uncle T got the flu.  I'm sure he was thrilled with his littlest nephew for that Easter present!

Sadly, and much to soon, my family headed home on Easter Sunday, which was an event in and of itself, and worthy of it's own entry, soon!

Not quite right...

For those of you not in Korea, I thought you might enjoy some of the Korenglish that make our lives interesting on a daily basis!  You might have to click on the photos to zoom in to read them better... sorry!

We found this sign on base, where everything is written in English... sort of.  This is a pretty typical example of how sentence structure often gets lost in the translation, but you can still figure out the meaning.  (The funny part is, the elevator was obviously empty, and not in operation...)

Here is another, where you can sort of figure out where they're going.  This is a guide map from a major amusement park (it's like Disn.ey of Korea).  I know it's hard to read, but the tag line says, "Romantic Christmas with your Lovers."  All of my lovers, huh?

And then there are some times you really have no idea where they're going.  We saw this sign in the children's room at the aquarium.  Mind you, I'm very appreciative of all the signs in English around Korea (thanks mostly to the 1988 Olympics) but sometimes they're really not helpful!

Your guess is as good as mine on that one!

These recycling signs are posted outside one of my friend's apartments.  This is a very popular apartment complex for Americans to live in, but again, I really don't know where they're going with this...

If you can't read it, in the left bin you can recycle your "can," "beer bottle" on the right, and the middle one is labeled for "various diseases!"  So next time you have a disease you need to recycle, you know where to go!

The puzzles

So I did an earlier post about the boys' love of puzzles. Well, lately this has taken on a whole new meaning. It all started when E's mom sent N a 100 piece puzzle. Yes, I said a 100 piece puzzle for a 2-year old. We laughed. I mean, really laughed... until we did it with him. It became clear very quickly that Grandma knew something we didn't. The child loves puzzles, and is quite good at them!

This is a picture of N in his pjs with the completed 100 piece puzzle. We do it almost every night before bed, and depending on his mood (and how quickly we want to get him to bed) he can do about a third of it himself. He refers to this one as his "animal puzzle" and his favorite parts to put together are the birdies. Those of you who know my love of birds (ha, ha) will understand that I am more than willing to let him do those pieces. He literally can pick up a piece, spin it around, and put it in where it goes. Amazing.

So after realizing this, we bought him a 60 piece Thomas puzzle. The first time he saw it, E helped him with the outside, and N did the rest. The third time he saw it, he did it by himself, with E and I offering a couple of suggestions and helps near the end. Apparently he has his Dad's (and Grandma's) spacial reasoning!